Julie Walters: 'Who'd have sex without alcohol? Especially the first time'

Julie Walters has admitted that before she met her husband Grant Roffey, she had never had sex while she was sober.

The actress, 65, was describing her first encounter with the police officer, now 57, in an interview with Saga magazine when she made the candid remark.

She set the scene 30 years ago at a bar in Leicester, where she sat with a friend after three bottles of Champagne.

“It was full of Hooray Henries,” Walters said.

“I remember saying, ‘I bet nobody here’s a member of the Labour Party.’ And he turned round and said, ‘Well I am, actually.’

“‘Cor, you’re massive! Look at this bloke’s neck. God, it’s as big as my thigh!’ I was so embarrassing. We started talking about God knows what, and when Ros [her friend] and I left he said, ‘I’ll see you home.’ And we staggered out with him.

“So we walked Ros home, then he walked me home. I said, ‘Come in!’ He said, ‘No, it’s all right.’ I said, ‘Come iiiiinnn! I’ve got a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau!’ He moved in and never moved out. It was instant for me.

“I remember saying, ‘Do you want my children?’ That first night – terrible things! – it was driven by alcohol. I was shy like that. Who’d have sex without alcohol? Especially the first time. He was really sweet about it. Before we were together, I don’t think I’d ever done it sober.”

Now, however, the Indian Summers star barely drinks at all, because she suffers from a yeast allergy.

“If I were to have Marmite, it would just take the roof of my mouth right off. Anything with yeast makes my eyes go funny, makes me a bit wheezy.

“And before, when I’d had a few drinks, the next day I’d always have these flu-like symptoms. I thought everybody had those, and I was telling this gynaecologist… And she suggested a skin test to see if I was allergic to anything. And the yeast went, whoo! So now I know.”

Unless, of course, she’s appearing on The Graham Norton Show, “where you have to be jolly with people you’ve not met before, and I have a glass of Champagne. But I don’t like the effect on my body.”